The Adventures of Scrumpy the Viking
The Adventures of Scrumpy the Viking was for several years the premier children's program on ERPT 1, which operated in Eruowood in the years following 1968. Arnold Valosky (one of the members of the group who helped create ERPT) created TAOFSTV as a action-adventure program with vikings for young children, shown live on weekends, which allowed the group to use viking-themed stuff they bought at the local Walmart as props. Rerun of the series have aired on the Nick Jr. block on Nickelodeon worldwide since 1994. Scrumpy, a Swedish viking, was the hero of his program, in which he personified the forces of good while wearing a crash helmet designed after a viking helmet and riding angry-looking Arabian stallions and various breeds of horses. The villains, allegedly the evil rulers of other groups, also rode horses and stallions. TAOFSTV was the first television program to ever show horses fight each other. The scene, done live in the show's twentieth episode, was masterminded by the network's master special effects artist, Thumbelina Anderson. The two horse heads, which were Halloween horse costume "full head masks" from Malone's, which were tied to and hung on twisted chicken wire, were smacked together for twenty-six seconds, and earned the show an Eruo Award. Scrumpy and the Viking pack leader Olaf worked out of "a secret Viking base" that was actually a closet in a house near the ranch where the show was filmed. Their warriors were creatively known as the Vikings. A slew of other people appeared on the show, although many of them simply walked in front of the camera without knowing it was on. TAOFSTV was the network's longest-lived program, running for eighteen years. Production funding abruptly ran out one day during the live transmission of TAOFSTV episode #1,508 ("Viking Picnic FOR THE LATE OONSKI!"), and viewers of the program were treated to a sad, awkward moment when ERPT's crews (disguised as Vikings) took away props one by one while Olaf was in the middle of a speech before the credits. Later then, after the speech was finished, the camera faded to black and the credits rolled, ending the program forever. A spokesperson from ERPT said that the reason why TAOFSTV was cancelled was the production funding money that was used during the show's final season was used to buy episodes of the then new Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles cartoon show which took over the time slot that TAOFSTV was in on Saturday mornings, but the show continued in reruns on weekdays until 1994. The show spawned three spinoffs: two foreign versions (one for Second Life) and the ERPT 1 news program ERPT Nightly News. The Second Life version of The Adventures of Scrumpy the Viking (Scrumpy the Viking Warrior and His Cracking Cadets) was, in fact, done live every evening by the same people who did the Eruowoodian versions. They simply performed the day's episode over again, this time with bad British accents (except the guy who played Blakely, the "Swedish" guy, who simply switched back to his regular speaking voice and became the "Kantonian" guy). The result was then sent across trans-Eruopian cables and broadcast by Treet TV1. All episodes, scripts, props, and other stuff are in the ERPT Archive, and all episodes were saved by kinescope (and later ERPT's experimental "1970's-style VHS kinescope" technology). *''Character info here: The Adventures of Scrumpy the Viking/Characters.'' *''Merchandise endorsements here: The Adventures of Scrumpy the Viking/Merchandise.'' 1969-1987 Broadcast Eruowood * ERPT 1 * ERPT Retro (reruns) Jetania * ELB 1 worldwide * * A3 Network (2003-2005) Category:TV Shows Category:TV Shows in Eruowood Category:The Adventures of Scrumpy the Viking Category:Eruowood